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Thank you for checking out my classroom website. Below is my classroom blog, where I include pictures of student work and instructional videos. Above I have links to our student Artsonia gallery, Youtube channel and my Prezis. If you have any questions, leave me a comment and I'll respond as quickly as possible.

We have been working on portraits and landscapes as our learning objectives lately. With this project we combined a portrait with a landscape. We completed a draw-a-long and used marker and crayon to color in our drawings. I absolutely love these drawings so I have to thank,apexelementaryart.blogspot.com, for sharing this idea. You can get my lesson plan here.

With this lesson we learned about landscapes, types of landscapes and items you could find in a landscape. We began by looking at desert landscapes and cacti. I have a number of different types of cacti, so I talked about some of them, the colors, shapes and lines you can find in them and the flowers that bloom from them. Green, Yellow and black tempera were used and mixed together to get a variety of greens for the cactus. We used bleeding tissue paper to stain our sky color and torn paper towel to make the sand on our background paper. Then a cactus was drawn on the back of the green paper, cut out and glued onto the background. A scarp piece of cardboard and black tempera paint was used to stamp the cactus needles. I found this project idea at: www.mrspicassosartroom.blogspot.com My lesson plan can be found here and my instructional video is included below.

My second grade looked at the work of Henri Rousseau focusing on his jungle pictures. We identified the foreground and background in each piece and I introduced them to middle ground. We talked about his use of many different greens and how many looked like dreams because funny things were going on in some of the paintings.

We then used the DoInk app to create a background for our jungle and a foreground of tall grass. I then wrote a short list of different jungle animals and had the class vote on which one they'd like to draw in their jungle. One class chose a snake, one a lion and the last class chose a giraffe. We then completed a draw-a-long in the app to create our jungle animal. Then we added one or more frames to make slight changes to our animal for the final animation piece.

To see all my student's finished piece please click on my YouTube button in the top right corner of the screen.

We were reviewing the learning objective: I can identify and use warm and cool colors. Third grade began by looking at a photos of white birch trees and looked for correct landscape proportion with large thick trees up front and thinner smaller trees in the back of the photo.

The first step was to use masking tape, to tape off four or more trees, showing correct landscape proportion. Smaller, thinner pieces of tape were cut to create branches. Then the edges of the masking tape was traced with pencil and a horizon line drawn slightly above the bottom of the shortest tree. A watercolor wash was painted in the sky using warm or cool colors only.

During the last day on this piece the masking tape was removed carefully and we added the black "smudges" using black tempera paint and cardboard strips. I found the idea for this lesson on www.artroom104.blogspot.com

With this lesson we were reviewing the learning objective "I can create a landscape showing correct landscape proportion with size placement". Simply, this means we place smaller items in the back and larger items upfront. We created a dessert landscape using the Brushes app.

This was their first time using Brushes, so I introduced them to the layers and how they can help create a landscape showing correct proportion. We first created a black line drawing of mountains. Then added an additional layer to color in the background and moved the black line layer on top the colored layer to create a neatly outlined piece.

We repeated all these steps with the middle-ground of small cacti and then the foreground of larger cacti. Each piece was then downloaded to Dropbox.

Our school came up with a school song that incorporates our four character traits and introduced our students to our new school super heroes, so when I came across this lesson idea on Tricia Fuglestad's website (www.drydenart.weebly.com), I had to try it out.

We used the Brushes app to import a photo of each student posed like a super hero and added a layer to create a black silhouette of that pose.

I then asked them to choose one color and focus on tints and shades of that color to create a radial design in the background. This is a review of the learning objective we have been working on over the last few lessons.

We then moved our silhouette layer over the colored layer for our finished piece.

My fourth graders have been using the Brushes app for awhile now and I think they are really feeling comfortable using it and the iPads to create Art pieces. I asked a few of my "Brushes experts" to help out the first graders when they created their first Art piece in Brushes. They were so much fun to watch help the little ones and how confident they were.

We have been working on creating tints and shades of a color (value) using tempera, so I chose to do this lesson with the class to show the students how they could create value on the iPad.

I began by taking their photo in front of a "green screen" and asked them to pose as if they were looking at a landscape. I uploaded their photos into their Dropbox folder and each child was then able to access their photo from Dropbox and import it to their iPad. They used the Brushes app to import their photo and added a second layer to trace their silhouette in a shade of one color.

They then added a second layer where they drew an organic line to represent a landscape and colored it in with a lighter or tint of the their silhouette color. They repeated the organic line and change of color two to three more times to fill in the entire layer. The final step was to move their silhouette layer to the top of their landscape layer and viola!

I found this lesson idea on www.drydenart.weebly.com and was inspired to try it! Thanks to Tricia Fuglestad for always sharing your wonderful lesson ideas.

Third grade is working on two learning objectives: I can identify and create foreground, middle ground and background. & I can produce elements of a landscape in correct proportion. We started by looking at Grant Wood's painting "Fall Plowing". We discussed how artists create space by overlapping, including foreground, middle ground and background and putting large detailed items upfront and small items without details in the background. We drew a landscape of farm land including a fence, hills with crops and an orchard with trees in the same style as Grant Wood's. The second day we added crayon by tracing all our lines and coloring in heavily only our farm plants and trees. We then use watercolor to paint the entire paper. I stressed using realistic colors. On the last day we used construction paper to create two barns. One barn is 4 x 4" with details like a barn door and white trim and second barn with no details and glued them onto our painting showing correct proportions. I've been doing this lesson for about five years now. I really love how they turn out. I found this lesson on Art Sonia. Sorry I do not have the name of the teacher and school that shared this.

Denise Jackson

Check out my YouTube I've been teaching elementary Art for 18 years the last eight at Becky-David in the Francis Howell School District. Teaching Art is a great job and I absolutely love it! My job is made easier by all the wonderful Art teachers out there who share their ideas and "secrets" with me personally and through the internet. Thank you! Check out & subscribe to my Youtube channel of instructional videos & book read alouds by pressing the button at the top right.